"A new sport for us to play ..."

I'm a big fan of Harry Potter, and I read all the book and play all the games. This one's no exception. Most of the Harry Potter games are much too easy. Even then, I wanted this game anyway.

Story-7/10

Quidditch is played with 7 people on each team. Three are the chasers; they're the primary scorers on your team. You have two beaters who protect your chaser from bludgers, two nasty ball directed to hit your chasers and steal the ball from them. You have a keeper who is like a goalie. The last person is the most important on the team. He/She is the seeker. Their job is the catch the golden snitch. Doing this ends the match and gives that team 150 points! You are a person who can pick between between one of the four Hogwarts teams in an epic (but easy) battle to win the House Cup. You can pick between Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. You can also play with people who are actually in the books not imaginary characters. The other thing you can do is take it a step further. Try to win the Quidditch World Cup! This mode is harder than the Hogwarts Mode. You can use countries as England, U.S.A., Japan, Ireland, the all-famous Bulgaria and other teams of the world.

Gameplay-9/10

You have a variety of options on the field. You can control a chaser, while doing terrific combos and special moves. You can boost, tackle, and dodge. You can direct your beaters to protect your chasers from bludgers. They can even direct hand-piloted bludgers at the other team! You can perform many special moves and combos to increase your seeker meter. The more goals you make with special shots also increases your meter. When the two teams meters touch, it's time to find the golden snitch! When the other teams chaser come within the scoring zone, you can become the keeper. After you save it, if you save it, you can pass it back to one of your chasers and continue the match. While winning matched and beating challenges you unlock Quidditch Cards. You can use a few of these cards to unlock stadiums,brooms, and teams. Other than that, all you can do is increase your collection.

Control-8/10

The controls are great and easy to learn.You only need one button to fly, and the other are directed to one thing each. Away from the field, it is an easy to learn process. Move the control stick and press A. On the field it is easy also. Nothing is too complicated. You can use just two buttons and win the game. By the way, that takes us to the difficulty.

Difficulty-2/10

It is too easy. Way to easy. The only way to make it harder is to upgrade to another broom! What sense does that make? Every time you get a better broom, the game gets harder! Matches are easy to win, usually you can hold your opponent scoreless while scoring 450 points yourself. Your opponents do very little to block your way. You could just fly straight and nothing would happen to you. They just let you go, making it easy to score.They do intercept passes though, and their keepers are fairly educated. Every time their chasers get it, you can tackle them easily. They do nothing to evade you. I gave this a two, because once you get a hang of it, there's no stopping you.

Video/Audio-8/10

The graphics are stunning. The arenas are terrific. Each is unique from another. They are each highly detailed. On the little cutscenes in this game, the graphics are much better than the earlier games. Each of the voices are good and they seem to fit their character respectively. The chants, sounds, and voices are good and fun to listen to. The music is enjoyable and after the cries of the crowd die down, you can hear it.

Overall-6.8 (rounded to a 7)

After averaging every score the overall comes to a little disappointing 6.8. This game is good, no doubt, but the easiness took this game down the drain-hole. Everything else makes the grade in the sports title. Yes, I said sports title. There is also multiplayer for you to play with your friend. Thank you EA Games for making this game, and please make more Harry Potter titles to satisfy us all.

Buy or Rent?- Rent it. This game can be beaten in a very short amount of time. If you really like it, go ahead and buy it. It is currently $39.95. It's cheaper, and also is a good buy. If you have any questions e-mail me at serpantsnake@yahoo.com.